


the long way home

by katplanet



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Dave lives, Explicit Sexual Content, Implied/Referenced Drug Abuse, Klaus Stays, M/M, Please Do Not Be Fooled This Is Absolutely Saccharine, implied/referenced suicidal ideation, the inherent eroticism of your boyfriend not liking your dad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-03
Updated: 2021-01-03
Packaged: 2021-03-13 05:01:48
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,640
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28522851
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/katplanet/pseuds/katplanet
Summary: “We’ll figure it out,” Dave tells him. “We’d better. We’re getting married in - how long?”“Twenty-three years.”“Oh, plenty of time.”
Relationships: Klaus Hargreeves/David "Dave" Katz
Comments: 20
Kudos: 119
Collections: Hosted by Elliott's House: The Great Year End Fuck 2020 TUA Fandom Bang!, Numerous OTPS Infinite Fandoms





	the long way home

**Author's Note:**

> done for elliott’s house’s 2020 bang!! my prompt words were ‘road’ and ‘relief.’ the first shows up literally, and i tried to give an aura of the second.
> 
> i fudged the details of rehab in the late '80s, forgive me, google can only teach me so much.

Klaus walks through the door and across the room and straight into Dave's chest. Mashes his forehead into the crook of Dave's neck and stands there, arms hanging at his sides, warm and alive.

"Hey, you," Dave says, nose in his hair.

The staff know who Dave is by now, who he is to Klaus. There's no way they don't. Klaus never even tried to make excuses for his weekly visitor being a man who wasn't a relative, and Dave - Dave can only imagine how he must come off when he’s with Klaus here. All the things he must wear on his sleeve. So he wraps his arms around Klaus's shoulders, holds him.

Klaus breathes in, out, brings his hands up to Dave's waist. Guides their bodies far enough apart for him to look at Dave’s face. Klaus doesn't kiss him, but Dave's lips prick up all on their own, the sense memory of Klaus's mouth.

"One sec," Klaus says. "Gotta make the rounds."

There’s a little farewell contingent waiting. Klaus says goodbye to each of them, cracks a joke with an orderly, pecks one of the nurses on the cheek. Another nurse takes his hands in hers and leans into his ear, speaks low enough that Dave can't even hear the sound of her voice. Klaus nods, and she pats him on the shoulder.

Klaus turns to head back to Dave and the desk, and Dave catches the tail end of his wink at an empty chair.

The secretary is lovely, she has been from the day Dave dropped Klaus off, and she sits them down and takes them through discharge like a tour guide. Klaus gets a clipboard of papers to sign. There's a wall of pamphlets next to the front desk, some Dave recognizes from the VA waiting room, some he doesn't. He met one of the guys credited on  _ The Homosexual Alcoholic _ at a conference. Kind of a pedant, mostly well-meaning. Straight as a nail, but that can't be helped.

“Sweetheart,” Klaus says, and Dave turns. “You wanna do this one?”

Dave glances at the secretary, who’s busying herself with other things. Looks down at the form Klaus is holding out to him. There’s a spot toward the bottom for the person the facility can contact if Klaus is unavailable. Fields for Dave’s name, his address, his home and work numbers. All things Klaus knows off the top of his head, and Dave would point that out, if that was why Klaus was asking.

It’s not the first chance Dave has gotten to tie his name to Klaus’s on paper, link them in this way. It’s easy to forget the intimacy of it between one time and the next. He takes the clipboard from Klaus, writes down his information, hands it back.

Klaus fills the rest out in silence, legs crossed at the knee, heel bouncing against his calf. He smacks the board down on the desk when he’s done and slides it across to the secretary, a twinkle in his eye.

“The pact is sealed,” he says to her. “Who’s got my stuff?”

“Right over there.”

Klaus holds up his index finger to Dave, hops out of his chair and bustles over to a door with an open window on the other side of the lobby. Dave hoists himself up onto his feet, watches Klaus lean in through the door to talk to whoever’s on the other side. Hears him laugh out loud.

“He’s an odd one,” the secretary says.

Dave’s heard people call Klaus  _ odd _ in two different tones. Her tone is the one he likes. “He is,” he says.

Dave’s spoken with the secretary before. She can’t have too many years on him, but she has the accent of all the ladies he grew up around back home, and it makes him feel young. She’d swapped pleasantries with him when he’d come for visits, chatted with him about the three big wolfhounds in a photo frame on her desk. He’d stood next to her just like this that first afternoon, after Klaus had left for intake and before he’d made the long walk back across the parking lot to his car, and she’d talked at him about those dogs, about her son, about the unseasonably beautiful winter, and he’d nodded along and smiled at her and acted so convincingly like a human being that it started to feel genuine.

“You two take care,” she says to Dave. “Your Klaus has the information, if you ever need to call.”

He double-checks her name placard, says, “Take care, Sissy.”

Klaus comes back with a canvas bag full of his things. He gives it to Dave to hold so he can fish out his coat and pull it on over his t-shirt. Dave reaches up and scoops Klaus’s hair out from the neckline, audience be damned, and Klaus beams at him. His cheeks are so pink, his skin warm and tan like he’s been in the sun. Maybe he has.

“Shall we?” Dave asks him.

“We shall,” Klaus says, and he holds out his arm, and Dave takes it.

It doesn’t snow in San Jose, but it rains. A drizzle, nothing to write home about, but Klaus wraps his coat tighter around himself with his free hand. Dave pulls him closer, and they walk like teenagers, shoulders bumping, all the way to the Fiero.

Dave opens the passenger door first, and Klaus bundles himself in, tucks his miles of legs into the seatwell in front of him. Dave shuts the door for him, which is maybe laying it on a little thick, but he’s careful about it, makes sure it closes hard enough for the lock to engage but not so hard that it slams. Same with the driver’s side when he gets in. He settles himself, clicks his seatbelt shut.

Klaus is staring at his knees. He crosses his ankles, then uncrosses them.

“You wanna head straight home?” Dave asks him.

Klaus looks up. “I’ve got options?”

Dave might have tried to play it coy, once upon a time. "I asked for the week off. Thought we could take the long way home, if you want to."

Klaus smiles. Doesn't ask why, or where they're going, or if they can afford it. "Yeah, okay."

Dave leans in, and Klaus meets him halfway, kisses him over the gearshift. Klaus hums when their lips meet, reaches up and touches Dave’s jaw with the very tips of his fingers.

“You better drive,” Klaus says, “or I’m gonna burn our whole vacation right here.”

℘

They’ve got tapes in the car for trips like these - one or two they bought, but mostly ones Klaus made, a habit he picked up the second blank cassettes appeared in stores. He writes out tracklists on notepad paper, spends whole afternoons waiting to record the radio,  _ borrows _ from library tapes. Sometimes he leaves pauses for songs that haven’t come out yet, which is a pain when they’re listening and hit dead air, but has always been worth the wait, so far.

“This is All I Really Want,” Klaus says as he fast forwards.

“Who’s that by? Someone I know?”

“Not yet,” Klaus sighs. “God, that whole fuckin’ album. Give it like … five more years, you’re gonna understand me on a whole new level.”

“I don’t know how many more levels there can be past Hounds of Love.”

“You love Hounds of Love.”

“I do love Hounds of Love.”

They make it through the gap and into Cyndi Lauper, and Klaus leans back in his seat, stretches all his long limbs out and hums in contentment. They’re doing good time on Cañada Road, slower than the highway but nearly empty of traffic on a Tuesday afternoon, and if Klaus is wondering why they’re going north instead of south, he hasn’t asked. He watches the scenery out the window, sings along to the music. Sometimes, like now, Dave looks at him and finds him looking back, and they smile at each other, like they're getting away with something.

It's less than two hours from where Klaus has been staying to where Dave is taking them. Dave has been in work meetings longer than this drive. It's a completely reasonable amount of time to be sitting right next to the love of his life without-

He glances at the clock. They're an hour in. He looks back at Klaus.

“Pull over,” Klaus says, and he puts his hand on Dave’s thigh.

They don’t even make it to the back seat. Klaus climbs over the stick and into Dave’s lap, pushes his nose under the hinge of Dave’s jaw, mouth hot against his pulse point. He unbuttons Dave, unzips him, pushes his own linen pants down and away. Gets them both in his hand like that, tucked up in too little space. Klaus can’t bend the way he used to, this is going to be hell on his knees, but he’s grinning against Dave’s lips, twisting his clever palm, rubbing them together as he rocks his bony hips into Dave’s belly.

Klaus finishes first, face mashed into the headrest next to Dave’s ear, free hand fisted in Dave’s button-down, and he trembles through it and works Dave over with his slick fingers until Dave snaps his hips up and pushes Klaus’s ass back onto the steering wheel. Klaus laughs louder than the horn and squeezes Dave tighter, nips at his neck until he comes.

He cups Dave’s face in his palms, after, gets his cheek all messy, and Dave can’t bring himself to grumble about it. He just kisses him, runs a hand up and down his back. 

“Missed you,” Klaus says, and Dave can feel his voice rumbling in the palm pressed to his spine.

“I know.” Dave ducks in, pecks the corner of Klaus’s lips. “Me too.”

“I’m gonna need a boost.”

Dave opens his door and Klaus flops right out onto the shoulder. They left the rain behind in San Jose, and Klaus squints in the sun when he looks up at Dave. Dave leans down with one foot on the gravel and kisses him again, because he’s there, because he can.

"C'mon," Dave says, "someone's gonna stop and offer to jump our engine."

"My engine's already jumped, pretty baby."

Klaus lets Dave help him up, walks around to his own seat, dusts off the back of his coat on the way. Dave wipes his cheek with his handkerchief, turns the key in the ignition. Cyndi picks up where she left off.

℘

Dave booked them a room in a hotel he stayed in on a trip for the clinic a few years ago. Nothing fancy, but it's close to the woods, pretty far out of the way. Quiet. Quaint in a way that not many of the places they’ve slept ever have been. The bed has a quilt folded at the foot of it.

“I don’t know if I’m gonna get murdered or served cookies,” Klaus says. He peeks into the wardrobe, finds hangers for their coats.

“I’ll defend you from the very nice cleaning ladies.”

“Oh, we’re do-not-disturbing for at least twenty-four hours.”

Klaus pulls him into the bathroom by his belt loops, cuddles up against his back while he cranks the shower hot enough to turn their skin pink, which Klaus likes and Dave has gotten used to. Dave brought their whole curl regimen from home, and as soon as they’re in he guides Klaus under the water, squeezes out a palmful of shampoo, works up a lather in his hair. It gets the room smelling like coconuts, gets Klaus melting happy under his hands. The long line of his body swaying to the rhythm of Dave’s fingers massaging his scalp.

They scrub the day off, then Klaus does Dave’s hair, and it’s all very chaste right up until it isn’t. Until Klaus pulls Dave in for a kiss with his nails scratching through the short shave behind his ears, and they keep kissing, shampoo running down Dave’s forehead.

"We can't have car sex and shower sex in the same day," Klaus says, skimming his palms down to grab Dave’s ass, "we’ll start to think we're cool."

So Dave rinses his hair, they towel off enough not to drip. He gets Klaus in bed and kisses him, presses him into the mattress until he can feel Klaus's heartbeat in his own ribs. The leadup takes longer than usual, partly because it's been a while but mostly because once Dave starts touching Klaus he can’t stop, inside and out, going over him with gentle fingers, teasing noises out from the pit of his lungs.

When he finally fucks Klaus he takes it as slow as he can stand, one hand on Klaus's hip, the other arm folded under the pillow. Dave keeps sinking down into his chest to feel him and then lifting up on his elbow to look at him. Klaus writhes against him, tries to goad him into moving faster, shudders in pleasure when it doesn't work. Runs his hands all over Dave's back, his arms, his thighs, everywhere he can reach.

He comes shaking with his fist in Dave’s hair, flexing his fingers in rhythm with the tense and release all through his body, and it drags Dave over with him. It hangs in the air between them even after it’s over, and Klaus keeps his arms around Dave’s shoulders, kisses him the way he did when they were new to each other, back when they might actually have been able to coax another round out of themselves.

But they’re not so young anymore, and they end up on their sides, legs tangled, as close as they can get. They kiss until they stop, and then they breathe together, nose to nose, sharing space.

Klaus taps his fingertips along Dave’s spine. ”I thought sex was supposed to get worse as you got older.”

“We get too much practice for that.”

“Is that all it takes? Why aren’t all the seventy-year-olds in the world having the time of their lives?”

“Do you know how many seventy-year-olds I ask about their sexual activity on a daily basis?”

“Shockingly, I do not.”

“At least one,” Dave says. “And I don’t think you have anything to worry about.”

“Where are you meeting all these spicy geriatrics, and am I invited?”

“They usually have a health concern they’re coming to a clinic for, I don’t know if that sours the pot for you.”

“Depends on whether or not it’s contagious.”

Dave gets a hand in Klaus’s hair and tugs it, just gently. He can’t see Klaus grin, he’s too close to his face, but he can feel the pillow shift under their cheeks, the soft exhale that comes with Klaus’s smiles.

“You gonna fuck me when I’m old and wrinkly?” Klaus asks him.

“I’ll fuck you as long as you let me.”

"Even if I get gout?"

"Even if you get gout."

"I’d judge you for that, but I don't actually know what gout is."

"I'm not explaining gout to you while we're naked."

"Okay," Klaus says. "I'll take your word for it."

℘

Dave wakes up to Klaus asleep next to him, curls stuck to the corner of his mouth, and abandons every plan he'd made for the day that involved leaving the hotel room. He shifts near enough to wrap his arm around Klaus's waist, to feel the heat of his body after hours under the blankets, the steady up and down of his ribs. His hips, his belly, the places he's filled back out since the last time Dave got to hold him. There’s some give to him again.

Touching him like this, the vulnerable expanses of him that Dave has spent the better half of his life daydreaming about - it’s probably normal to feel this way after being apart. Reasonable, expected, to want to burrow in and relearn every inch of skin. To want to catalog each change, read the stories that Dave wasn’t there to see written.

Their bottle of lube is still on the bedside table from the night before. He’s careful when he reaches across Klaus to grab it. Maybe not as careful as he would be if he actually wanted Klaus to stay asleep.

Dave has three fingers in himself by the time Klaus fully wakes up and catches on. He doesn't say anything, still groggy, eyes crusted at the corners, but he reaches down under the blankets and finds Dave's hand. Nudges it away, slips his own fingers in instead. Kisses Dave's neck while he tests at him. Checks his work.

"Sorry I woke you," Dave says.

"No, you're not."

"Yeah, no, not at all."

"C'mere." Klaus pulls out of Dave, rolls onto his back. It takes him a few tries to kick the covers down to the foot of the bed. "Make it up to me."

Dave gets up on his knees and settles across Klaus's thighs. Looks down at him, his long hair fanned out over the pillowcase. He's getting shots of grey at his temples. They're dignified, well-earned. Klaus has never mentioned wanting to dye them. Maybe he never will.

Klaus smooths a palm all the way up from Dave's belly to his chest. "Hey, baby."

Dave reaches behind him and eases Klaus into his body. It's been - it's been two  _ months, _ plus all the weeks before that with Klaus swinging between jittery and sick, a ball of raw nerves. Dave’s been taking care of himself, sure, but it’s not the same, it’s nothing at all next to this man he loves gripping his waist in his hands and arching up underneath him.

They rock together, morning sunlight filtering in through the gap in the curtains, and if Dave shut his eyes he could imagine it was another decade, another hotel in another country with Klaus inside him. He could, if he wanted to be anywhere other than here.

“You look so good, sweetheart,” he says.

Klaus has his eyes open too, beacons in the half-dark. His hands are everywhere, bracing Dave’s hips, rubbing his thighs, petting over his own chest as it starts to go slick with sweat. He reaches up and cups Dave’s jaw, not steering him down for a kiss, just holding him, thumbs smoothing under the apples of his cheeks. Dave turns his head and nuzzles into  _ hello, _ presses his lips to the heel of his palm and leaves them there until Klaus’s hands flit away to his arms.

Dave never figured out how to come just from this the way Klaus can, but it feels  _ good, _ having Klaus inside himself, working his pleasure out of him. He angles his pelvis and bears down, tenses his muscles around Klaus to get him gasping. The gentle power of it, giving himself to Klaus and soaking in all the need, the love. The shocks building in his own stomach, static before lightning.

“You want me like this?” Klaus asks, his voice low, hands curved loose around Dave’s ankles.

Dave hums, leans down and braces his arms on either side of Klaus’s head. Kisses him slow and deep, grinds into his lap. Klaus kisses him back until he can’t anymore, and then they breathe each other’s air while Klaus grips Dave’s calves and comes for him. Dave lifts himself back up, rides Klaus through it until he pushes Dave off onto his back.

“I thought about this,” Klaus says, "constantly," and he mouths down Dave’s throat, nips at his chest. Fits his fingers back into Dave’s body, bends them until Dave’s toes curl. “It was actually really fucking difficult to act normal in therapy while I was thinking about your dick, so thanks for that.”

Dave opens his mouth to defend his dick’s innocence, and then Klaus swallows him to the root, straight into the back of his throat. Takes him down and stays there, the muscles in his neck pulled tight against the lazy set of his shoulders, and then he crooks his fingers again and Dave has to grit his teeth to keep from shouting.

Klaus swallows once, twice, keeps his nose pressed to Dave’s skin until he has to pull off to breathe. He grins up at Dave while his mouth is free, lips already bright red, hair even more of a tangled mess than it had been when he first woke up, and he’s so-

“Gorgeous,” Dave tells him, and Klaus’s face softens.

Things get slower after that. Klaus shuts his eyes, his lashes fanned out over his flushed skin. It’s a full-body thing, when he does this for Dave, every beautiful part of him moving in waves as he bobs his head. The hollows of his cheeks, the curve of his back. Each dip and swell. Dave could live out the rest of his life exactly like this, could watch Klaus from now until the end of time, and it wouldn’t be enough.

And then Klaus beckons with his fingers right as he swallows, and Dave’s only human.

℘

They get decent enough to order room service and eat their sandwiches in bed with their knees touching. Klaus finds a radio station to play in the background while they lounge around and make out, and eventually Klaus fucks him again, and it all feels more or less the way Dave imagined a honeymoon would, back when he was old enough to think about those things but not so old that he’d realized he didn’t need to bother.

Apparently they’ll have an actual honeymoon if they make it long enough. It’s been years since Dave needed something concrete to live toward, but he keeps that one in his pocket, turns it over like a worry stone. Klaus hasn’t been wrong about these things yet.

“Are we going out tomorrow?” Klaus asks him, sprawled out on the mattress, the quilt wrapped around his shoulders.

“We can,” Dave says. “I had some ideas.”

“Ooh, it’s a date. Should I dress up?” Klaus furrows his brow. “Did you bring me clothes?”

“Yes, I brought you clothes.”

“I wouldn’t blame you if you didn’t bring me clothes.”

“I managed to resist the thought of you naked for a week.”

“Chivalry isn’t dead.”

Dave leans in and kisses him. “I don’t know about chivalry, but indecent exposure laws are alive and well.”

“This is San Francisco, baby, it depends on the neighborhood.”

“Sleep,” Dave tells him. “You can critique my taste in your clothes tomorrow.”

℘

Dave brought four days of outfits for himself, and … more than that for Klaus. He wanted Klaus to have options to choose from. A whole extra suitcase of options. A little overboard, but if Klaus is thinking that, he's not saying it. He's just sitting cross-legged on the floor, freshly showered and naked as the day he was born, pawing through the half of his wardrobe Dave folded up and packed him.

“See,” Klaus says, fishing out a gauzy paisley tunic, which he either bought a decade and a half ago or skimmed off a donation at the shop last year. “I’ve taught you so well.”

He styles that with crisp grey slacks and round sunglasses, worn brown loafers, his hair in a wild mane of curls around his shoulders, and it all comes together to make Dave reconsider his whole leaving-the-room plan. He holds fast to his convictions, lets Klaus pair his button-down and denim. 

“God damn,” Klaus says, looking him over once it’s all assembled. “We’re set on going out?”

“This is our vacation,” Dave says. “We have to do tourist things. It’s required.”

“Fine,” Klaus says. “But only because we’re too pretty to go unseen.”

Dave takes him to a cafe bookstore down the coast from the Golden Gate, tucks him into a booth and buys them both coffee and burritos. They eat with their ankles linked under the table, and then they go look at the shelves like they don’t already have stacks of things to read on their nightstands back home. Klaus gets a skinny volume of poetry and a book of essays by someone named Chestnut. Dave gets some novels, the pulpy kind with cover illustrations that make Klaus laugh.

They pick out a bag of coffee beans for their neighbors, another for Klaus to take back to the break room for his coworkers. Not quite gifts, not quite peace offerings. Acknowledgements. Thank-yous.

It’s a short walk from the cafe to the pier nearby, a curve out into San Francisco Bay with a good view of the bridge and the skyline. And Alcatraz, which is grim, but grim in a way with history, which Klaus likes. 

“We’re not going closer to the bridge?” Klaus asks him, hands tucked into the crook of his arm as they stroll.

“I thought it might be a little busy for you.”

“Oh,” Klaus says. “Thanks, baby.”

Klaus hasn’t been looking over his shoulder too much. No flinching glances away, no tensing in his jaw. Doesn’t mean he’s not seeing anything, but it does mean whatever he’s seeing isn’t getting to him. The deaths here on the pier, if any have lingered, were probably stressful, probably left unfinished business, but they were also probably accidents.

"We got a few guys thrown in there," Klaus says. He's looking at Alcatraz, his cheek resting on Dave's shoulder. "Felt good at the time."

"And now?"

"Now it feels like we were playing the world's most high-stakes game of cops and robbers."

"And you won."

"Monstrously fucked up."

Dave opens his mouth on instinct. Shuts it again. It's true, what Klaus said, and he’s saying it about his circumstances, not his character. He’s gotten better at that. They both have.

“I talked about them,” Klaus says. “My family.”

Dave looks down at him, the parts of him he can see when they’re standing so close together. The bridge of his nose, his hands clasped around Dave’s elbow. “How’d you explain it?”

“Badly,” Klaus says. “Foster care, shitty dad, stepford mom, siblings I left behind. They must’ve known I was hiding things, but they were nice about it.”

“Probably thought it was a cult, or something.”

“God. Yeah, they believed me when I said I couldn’t go back. Didn’t try to get me to call them, or anything. What does it say that I talk about the way I was raised and people jump to cult?”

"You want me to answer that?"

Klaus does something like a laugh, a sharp breath out through his nose. Cuddles into Dave's side. It's chilly out on the pier, windy, but it feels good to be outside. If Dave looks up it's like they're walking on the water, just the two of them, unmoored.

"No wonder they never pushed me on why I left," Klaus says. "They worked that one out on their own."

Dave doesn’t say anything. This is new, Klaus talking about rehab after it happens. Dave’s never asked him to do it. He never would. They got counseling together right after they turned forty, an office Dave found that took couples like them, and they talk about that all the time, but rehab belongs to Klaus. That’s how it was the first two rounds, at least. Dave had figured that’s how it would be now.

The silence hangs over them, not uncomfortable, just present. Eventually, Dave says, “Did it feel good? Talking about them.”

“Kind of.”

Klaus slows down, so Dave slows down, too, and eventually they stop together at the edge of the pier, the whole panorama of the city spread out for them.

“I don’t know how much more I can really talk about them before there’s nothing left to say.” Klaus hasn’t let go of Dave’s arm. “It’s over, right? Or it hasn’t started yet. Either way, it’s out of my hands.”

“Just because you can’t change it doesn’t mean it’s over. Not for you, at least.”

“I don’t regret it,” Klaus says. “I don’t think I do.”

“I wouldn’t be offended if you did.”

“Well, that’s awful.”

“Okay,” Dave says, “I’d understand if you did.”

“Better.”

Klaus steps just far enough away to face him. The wind is whipping his hair into his face and he's not trying to push it out. Dave reaches up, does it for him.

"I'm sorry," Klaus says.

"Klaus-"

"Let me. Okay?"

"You don't have to."

"I know. I want to."

Dave doesn’t strictly need to have his hand in Klaus’s hair anymore, but he leaves it there, rubs Klaus’s temple with his thumb. “All right.”

“You’ve stuck with me through a lot,” Klaus tells him. “I’m grateful. I’m sorry I asked you for it.”

“You’d do the same for me,” Dave says. “You  _ have _ done the same for me.”

“You deserve someone who has their shit together.”

“Yeah, well,” Dave says, “nobody has their shit together. Best I could hope for is someone who tries.”

Klaus leans in and kisses him, right there in front of heaven and earth and the scattering of weekday tourists. “I want to keep trying,” he says, his breath warm against Dave’s lips. “For you.  _ With _ you. Do you know what that’s like?”

“Terrifying?”

Klaus giggles, fists his hands in the lapels of Dave’s coat. “Yeah,” he says, a little high pitched, a little frantic. “Yeah.”

“We’ll figure it out,” Dave tells him. “We’d better. We’re getting married in - how long?”

“Twenty-three years.”

“Oh, plenty of time.”

Klaus kisses him again, and Dave wraps his arms around his waist, pulls him close. The sea doesn’t boil, lightning doesn’t strike them down, so Dave lingers for a while. Chases after Klaus’s lips when he starts to move away, feels him smile against his mouth.

“I love you,” Klaus says, when Dave finally lets him go. “God, do I say that enough? I  _ love _ you.”

“I love you, too.”

“That’s so stupid. That’s insane.”

“Not gonna stop, either.”

Klaus buries his face in Dave’s neck. It’s cold, a gray day, but Klaus is lovely and alive against him. “You say this stuff,” he tells Dave’s collarbone, and then he goes silent for a long time.

℘

He’d sobbed. Sobbed, and clung. Screamed - not at Dave, Klaus has never once in all of their life together screamed at Dave, but at the empty space behind him. Screamed and begged and bargained like a child. He’d gone until he went hoarse and then kept going, the harsh rattle of his voice next to Dave’s ear as he held him. Held him back, held him down. Klaus had dug his nails so hard into Dave's skin that there are still marks on either side of his spine. Dave had let him.

He had thought, at the time, that he would rather Klaus scream at him. Being screamed at is simple. It’s actionable.

After that, the hospital. The long slow peel of detox. Hours spent in an empty apartment. The knowledge, crawling horrible between every innocuous thought, that even though Dave couldn't be with him, Klaus was stuck sober in the middle of the ward at night and certainly not lacking for company.

And then, at Klaus’s request, the drive to San Jose. Quiet, a hand on the steering wheel, the other holding Klaus’s over the gearshift. One kiss in the parking lot, and Dave went home alone.

There’s that, all of that, and there’s Klaus in his arms here and now. Klaus in the sun filtering around the curtains, which they've kept shut today but twenty years from now might leave open, Klaus letting Dave sway him to the music from the cassette player. Smiling, laughing, singing Etta James in his ear.

Klaus, who talked him through his lows in those long first years back home, who sat next to him through the endless procession of queer and military funerals, who cried with him when he got the call about his father's, who crouched across from him on their bathroom floor and held his hands the night it all nearly got to be too much. Klaus, who chose him. Chose to stay.

They go to bed together and Dave loves him, makes love to him. Lays him out on his back and kisses the tattoo on his belly, the temple Klaus built to house them when they were still so fragile and new. Runs his hands over all the places Klaus’s body has stretched and softened in the decades since. The story of him, which Dave has been present for some of. Enough to know he wants to see it through to the end.

Klaus ends up in Dave's lap, Dave's back against the headboard, their arms around each other as Klaus rolls his hips, works Dave inside him. He's golden in the light, the fine bones of his face, the curl of his smile. Dave tries to reach between them, but Klaus guides his hand away.

"Just like this, baby," he says, his voice barely a breath, and of course Dave gives him what he wants.

And then they curl up together, Klaus gone all sweet and floppy, his eyes in happy crescents. He falls asleep with his head on Dave's stomach in the late afternoon, which means he's going to wake up in two hours hungry and antsy and neither of them will get back to bed until at least another three hours after that, but it's their vacation. Klaus can take a nap.

℘

Klaus wakes up in an hour and a half, and he's hungry, but he's quiet, contemplative. They order the two pasta options on the room service menu and split them both. Klaus barely says anything while they eat, which isn’t inherently strange, but Dave can almost hear the words slamming up against the backs of his teeth.

“We can talk about it,” Dave tells him after they’re done with dinner, when they’re back in bed, cuddled up under the blankets and the quilt. “Whatever it is. We don’t have to, but we can.”

They’ve only got the one lamp on, and it’s behind Klaus, a rim of light at the edges of his curls, sculpting the line of his cheekbone. “There’s a lot to talk about.”

“Whatever’s on your mind.”

Dave is far enough away on the pillow that he can see Klaus’s face, He reaches up, touches his lip. Skims along his jaw, down his throat.

“I was born,” Klaus tells him. “I mean, obviously, but, you know. My birthday happened.”

Dave knew it then and he knows it now, but he doesn’t say that. Just pets along the fine ridge of Klaus’s collarbone.

“I always thought,” Klaus says, “maybe - maybe I’m like a dropped stitch in time. And when I’m born is when everything unravels, or whatever.” He swallows, says, “But nothing happened. I’m still here.”

“Is that a bad thing?”

“It’s not any kind of thing. It’s nothing. The absence of a thing.”

"You being here is the opposite of the absence of a thing."

Klaus looks at him, his beautiful eyes, the smile lines that Dave has watched furrow in around them. “I left my family,” he says. “I keep expecting that to be important. But I haven’t done it yet, have I? I did it, but I haven’t done it. It’s gonna be thirty more years before I do it. I could be dead before I do it.”

“I don’t know how to tell what’s important to the universe,” Dave says, “but I can tell what’s important to you.”

"There's a little baby me out there, right now," Klaus says. "My little baby brothers and sisters."

“I know, sweetheart.”

“Ben’s going to die. Again. And I’m not even there to help him be with our family at the end because, what? I’m too scared to open a briefcase? And I just - I didn’t want to think about it anymore.”

“Of course you didn’t.”

“And I could have - could have started looking into the briefcase again,” Klaus says. “Maybe there was something we missed, or something new out there for us to find. Maybe if we were loud enough about it, someone would come find  _ us. _ I took it out of the cupboard and stared at it, and I got so tired.”

Dave smooths his hand over Klaus’s arm. Up and down, a slow rhythm for Klaus to match his breathing to.

“Sorry,” Klaus says. “This is, um. This is something I couldn’t talk about in group.”

“I’m proud of you for talking about it now.”

“My dad's rolling in the grave he isn't in yet.”

“You always make me proud,” Dave says. “Everything these past few months. I’m so proud of you, Klaus.”

Klaus huffs at that, turns his face into the pillow. “Sorry, baby, I appreciate it, but that’s - that’s a really low bar.”

“Lower bar than your dad's was, sure. I'm fine with that."

"I’ve thought about going to see him, sometimes," Klaus says. "Maybe asking him about the briefcase. I didn't do that, either."

"Can’t blame you. He's a piece of work."

"A piece of work who knew things. About me, about - about time. God, no wonder he hated me, maybe he knew I was going to do this."

"How would he?"

"I mean," Klaus says, his whole body tense with his words, "I don't know how this works. What if I was always going to have done this? What if that's why those - those time assassins haven’t come after me? I was always going to leave when shit got tough. That's part of the timeline. That's what I do, I leave."

"You haven't left me," Dave says.

"You're not the end of the world."

"Maybe not everybody else's world."

Klaus opens his mouth, and Dave cups his jaw, shuts it again.

“I saw your face,” Dave says. “When you thought you were going to lose me. I’ve never seen you so scared.”

“Hey,” Klaus says, and it’s gentle in spite of everything, the voice he gets on the rare occasion Dave dregs up - this. “You didn’t scare me, baby.”

“Doesn’t mean you weren’t scared. You could have walked out after that night and it wouldn’t have shocked me for a second. I wouldn’t even have held it against you.”

“I couldn’t have.”

“You could have,” Dave says, “but you didn’t. You stuck with me.  _ That’s _ what you do.”

“Okay,” Klaus says, “so I stick with the gorgeous man who loves me and not humanity on the brink of a fiery death. What a hero.”

“Klaus,” Dave says. “You’re the bravest person I know.”

“Not when it matters.” And then Klaus blinks, goes still. “Not that you don’t - Jesus. You know what I mean.”

“Actually,” Dave says, “I’m gonna be vain and say I probably mattered more to you than the abstract idea of  _ humanity. _ So I’ve seen firsthand what you do when it matters.”

“What does that say about me? That my boyfriend matters but the world didn’t.”

“It says I treat you better than the world did.”

“Talk about low bars.”

“Yeah, well,” Dave says, “I try to clear it with room to spare.”

Klaus cuddles closer, slips his ankle in between Dave’s calves. "I should feel bad for staying," he says. "I mostly feel bad about not feeling bad."

"I don't think you should feel bad," Dave tells him. "I think you've been exactly where you need to be."

Klaus's next breath comes out shaky, so Dave kisses him, throws his arm over his waist and reels him in the rest of the way.

"I just keep thinking," Klaus says, his forehead bumping Dave's, "if I had gone back and done something, maybe all my bullshit would have been worth it. You know?"

"You talk about yourself like you're dead."

"I did die," Klaus says, "for all intents and purposes."

"Death's a little different for you, I know, but it does actually mean something that you're still breathing."

"I vanished from the world. That's what dying is."

"But you didn’t,” Dave says. “You're in the world right now. You're trying to figure out how to help it."

"After twenty years of doing other shit."

“You took the scenic route."

Klaus scoffs, but he pulls Dave in for another kiss. "Hell of a detour," he says against Dave's mouth.

"I've had a pretty nice time."

Klaus goes quiet for a bit, lets Dave pet his hair. 

“I think,” he says, eventually, “I need to talk to my dad.”

Dave props himself up on his elbow. Cups his hand around Klaus’s ribs, smooths his thumb along the soft dip between them. “If that’s what you want, then you should do it.”

“That simple, huh?”

“Why wouldn’t it be?”

“Making choices that might change my own history? You’re right, how could that ever be complicated?”

“Everything you’ve told me,” Dave says, “all the stories of your life before you came to me, it was just people making choices. Weird people, sure. Weird choices. But you’re good at weird.”

“This thing, the thing that’s coming. It sounded bigger than any of that.”

“Nothing's so big that people can’t make choices about it.”

"But what if I - I don't even know.” Klaus flaps a hand through the air. “What if I accidentally break time?"

"If time is flimsy enough for one person to break it, we’ve got bigger problems."

“I mean, shit,” Klaus says. “Maybe talking to dad is actually what I’m supposed to do. Maybe I already did it and it won’t change anything. Maybe not doing it would be the thing that - god, no wonder Five drinks.”

Dave leans down, kisses Klaus’s forehead. “Nobody knows for sure what’s supposed to happen. Except for the people who apparently do. But you and I don’t, so forget what you’re supposed to do. What do you  _ want _ to do?”

“I want to talk to my stupid dad.”

“Okay. So we book a flight.”

“A flight,” Klaus says.

“Yeah.”

“We.”

“I mean,” Dave says, “if you want the company.”

“I’m gonna require the company.”

"I've got four more days off," Dave tells him. "We could fly out from here."

Klaus smiles, just barely. “You’d abandon our tourist plans?”

“The Castro will still be here next time we’re in town.” Dave pauses. “Right?”

“Oh, very much so.”

Klaus looks at him for a while. Runs a hand over his chest, around and down to hold his waist. Dave’s own body has changed along with Klaus’s, he’s reminded of it every time he stretches the sleep out of his joints, but Klaus’s touch still feels the same. Still soothes through to the root of him.

“You think I should do it?” Klaus asks him.

“I think I’ve been waiting for it,” Dave says. “Or something like it. Some kind of - something.”

“You could have brought it up before now. I wouldn't have been pissed, or anything.”

“I didn’t think you should do it before now.”

“But you think it’s the right thing?”

“I think it’s the right thing for you, in this moment, with the knowledge you have.”

“That’s so unhelpful,” Klaus says, petting at Dave’s hip, “and so sweet. In that order.”

“I can’t lead you anywhere,” Dave says. “Even if I could, I wouldn’t want to. But I’m with you when you get where you’re going.”

Klaus tugs Dave down to lie on top of him, pecks all down his jaw until he makes it to his lips. Holds him still with one hand on his back and the other cupped around the base of his skull, kisses him slow, deliberate. Hovers over his mouth once he’s done, trails fingers up through his curls.

“I’m taking you to meet my folks,” Klaus tells him.

“Dinner with mom 'n pop?”

“Dad hasn’t built mom, yet,” Klaus says. “You’ll meet Pogo, though.”

“The chimp?”

“The chimp.”

“You think they’ll like me?”

“Pogo might. I don’t think my dad’s ever liked anybody.”

"Good," Dave says. "I hope I piss him off."

"You're so hot when you're unfilial."

Dave laughs, tucks his nose into Klaus's neck. Kisses him there, warm where he’s been pressed against the pillow. It makes Klaus sigh, so Dave lingers, works a tiny mark into his skin. It’ll fade before they meet any important parental figures. Or maybe it won't.

"We can wait," Dave says. "He's not going anywhere, we can - we can give you some more space. Let all of this settle in a while longer."

He can't see Klaus's face, but he can feel him shake his head. "It's time, baby."

"I figured. Just wanted you to hear it."

Dave gets up on his elbows and kisses Klaus again, deeper, gets his breath coming quicker.

“I mean,” Klaus says, when Dave pulls back for air, “it’s not  _ time _ time. We’ve got at least a night.”

Dave nuzzles in, kisses his cheek. “You don’t say.”

“I should probably,” Klaus says, and cuts himself off nibbling Dave’s ear. “Probably, um. Sleep on it, or whatever.”

“Probably.”

“Or,” Klaus says, and he rocks his hips up, presses into Dave’s belly.

They kiss some more after that, move together under the covers. It’s urgent, desperate, the sting of leftover nerves, and then Klaus runs his fingers over the stubble on Dave’s jaw and it’s none of those things anymore. He cups Dave’s face in his hands and kisses his lips, his cheeks, his chin, the tip of his nose. Smooths back the bangs that are starting to curl down over Dave’s forehead.

“You take care of me,” he says.

"You deserve to get taken care of."

"So do you." Klaus hitches his thighs up around Dave's hips. "My man. My gorgeous man."

"Long as you'll have me," Dave says, and he leans into another kiss.

Klaus pets his fingertips over the soft hair behind Dave's ears, keeps going even after they break apart. "That's gonna be a long time," Klaus says. "Hope you're prepared for that."

"I'm prepared for anything."

Klaus pauses, steers Dave's head back far enough to look at him. "Ominous, but thanks."

Dave's mouth opens, and he says, "Whatever happens. I love you."

Klaus stares up at him. Whatever he sees, it makes him pull Dave into a long kiss, gets him working up against his body again. He runs his nails up Dave's back, and Dave shivers, presses him down.

"Whatever happens," Klaus says, "it happens with you."

"We don’t know what your dad is going to tell you."

“I’m not going anywhere you can’t go with me.”

Dave doesn't let his eyes close. “You can’t - I don’t want you to promise that.”

“Well, tough.”

Dave breathes out, and it’s harsher than he expects. “You might need to leave me, Klaus.”

“I’m telling you right now,” Klaus says, “I won’t.”

And Dave isn’t actually moving anymore, just a heavy lump on top of Klaus, who’s rubbing his back with one hand, cupping his cheek with the other. His  _ good bye _ hand cradling Dave’s jaw.

“You really think I would?” Klaus asks him.

“I don’t think you'd want to,” Dave says, which is true.

In one twist, Klaus flips them, Dave on his back, Klaus straddling his lap. Dave’s head hits the pillow and rattles loose - something.

What he says is, "I need you."

"You're my husband," Klaus tells him, hands braced on his chest. "I don't care about the law. Fuck the law."

"Klaus-"

"I am  _ committed, _ " he says, and he smacks his palms down on Dave's pecs for emphasis. "Do you know how much I like you, for that to be coming out of my mouth? I love you. I'm obsessed with you."

"I know, but-"

"No, shush, you got to be all romantic about how much you matter to me and now I’m telling you it's true. You're my husband," Klaus says again, firm, his jaw set like he thinks Dave would ever, ever argue that.

"I am," Dave says.

"We got through twenty years of bullshit,” Klaus says, pointing behind him like it’s all back there in their dust. “We're getting through this bullshit, too. Right?"

"Right."

"Good. Can I ride you?"

Dave laughs, he can't help it, can't keep it in. "’Course you can."

Klaus grins down at him, bites his lip as he reaches over to fish the lube out from the blankets. He warms some in his palms, reaches behind himself and slicks Dave up, gets him fully back on board after the break they took for - for all of that. Klaus is ready from earlier, and his body opens so sweetly as he sinks into Dave's lap. The pink flush all down his chest, his hair spilling around his shoulders as he tilts his head.

"I don't think you know," Klaus says, circling his hips, adjusting, "how much I love you."

Dave lets his breath out sharp, a break in it at the end. "Sweetheart."

"I'm gonna talk and fuck you," Klaus says, and he lifts up with his thighs, drops back down. "And you're gonna listen and come. Okay?"

Dave nods.

"I thought about you," Klaus says, and he stays seated in Dave's lap, works his muscles around Dave inside him. "Every day. Your dick, yeah, but the rest of you, too. I don't think we've been apart that long since the day we met. A two month stay is way more than a month, it turns out."

"Yeah," Dave gets out, "twice as much."

"It was good, the extra time. Glad I did it. Really let me dig in," and he twists his hips, and Dave moans and laughs at the same time, which sort of sounds like a cough. "I talked to my group about some stuff, talked to my therapist. There was this awesome old queen haunting the ward, I talked to him, too."

Dave rubs his hands up Klaus's thighs. "You worked hard."

"I did," Klaus says. "I worked really fucking hard. Thought about a lot of shit I don't like thinking about. And when I needed to think about something that wasn’t awful, I thought about you. Why I love you."

He leans forward, puts his hands on Dave's chest again. They're sticky with leftover lube, which Dave has never minded less than he does right now.

"There are," Klaus says, rolling his hips, "lots of reasons to love you, which is why everybody does."

Dave smooths his palms up to Klaus's waist. "Not everybody loves me."

"Everybody with sense," Klaus says. "Our friends. Your coworkers, your patients. Every single sweet little old lady living in our building loves you. And that's because you're kind, and funny, and thoughtful. Everybody knows that."

Klaus keeps making full sentences, and then there’s Dave, whose brain feels like he scooped it out of a lint trap. He spreads one hand over Klaus's belly, feels his abs flex as he moves.

"I love those things about you," Klaus tells him. "But I'm your husband. I get more, right?"

"You get everything." 

“Yeah.” Klaus shuts his eyes, grinds down. There's a thin sweat breaking out on his forehead, between his collarbones. "Yeah, I get you when you feel like shit and you're nice to me anyway. Or when you're mad at me and you still try to figure me out."

He opens his eyes again, says, "I get the way you look at me."

Klaus brings a hand up to Dave’s chin, tilts his jaw back with the tips of his fingers.

“Case in point, baby,” he says. “Christ.”

Dave bends his knees, lodges his heels in the mattress and fucks Klaus right, snaps up into him. He drops off his hands onto his elbows, props his head on Dave’s shoulder and rocks back to meet him, and whoever told Klaus sex got worse when you were older didn't know the first thing about it. Dave in his twenties, even his thirties after Klaus found him - he couldn't have  _ imagined _ it feeling this good. He wouldn’t have known what to do with this Klaus, the one with half a lifetime of pleasure to draw from, throwing himself into the rhythm of their bodies like it's what he was made for.

Klaus lets Dave have him like that until he starts trembling, tensing above him, all his tells. And then he pushes himself up, his curls clinging to his face. Reaches back with one hand to grab Dave's thigh, slow him down.

"You," Klaus says, chest heaving, "are distracting me."

"I don't know what you expected."

Dave rocks his hips up one more time, and Klaus laughs, swats his shoulder a little. He keeps shifting in Dave's lap, but it's gentle, a simmer after a boil.

"It's hard for me," Klaus says.

And then he cuts himself off and giggles, and Dave shoves at his chest, and Klaus says, "No, no, I'm being earnest," and he laughs again, and Dave sits up and kisses him until he pushes him back down onto the mattress.

"It's difficult for you," Dave says, settling into the pillow.

"Yeah," Klaus says. "To talk about this stuff when I'm - when I'm not occupied."

"No complaints from me."

Klaus looks down at him. Rocks his hips, chews his lip. “I don’t know how to say this next thing with your dick in me, though.”

“Do you know how many weird things you’ve said with my dick in you?”

“God, I am unfuckable,” Klaus says, but he’s grinning. “You‘re such a trooper.”

“You can just say it, sweetheart.”

Klaus‘s smile softens, goes quiet in a way Dave hardly ever sees. “That night,” he says, which - ah. “When I found you. The talk we had.”

Dave puts his hands on Klaus’s waist, rubs his thumbs along the dips of his bones. “Yeah.”

“I mean,” Klaus says, and he’s barely keeping up the pretense of sex. Just shifting his body, holding Dave inside him, so intimate it aches. “You’ve found me plenty of times, all worse than you in the tub looking grim. I should have known exactly what to do.”

“It’s different.”

“Yeah. And you were right,” Klaus says, “I was scared. Not of you, not  _ by _ you, but I - I thought I was going to do something wrong. All I’d ever done was help people be dead. I’d never helped anyone stay alive before.”

“You helped,” Dave tells him, can’t not tell him. “More times than that. More than you know.”

“And that’s what we do, right? We help each other live. And living with you, it’s, um.” Klaus swallows, trails his fingertips over Dave’s belly. “I didn’t think this was the side of death I was good for, until I did it with you. And that makes me love you more, and it spirals like that, I just keep loving you-”

Dave sits up, braces himself on the heels of his palms. It jostles Klaus in his lap, breaks him out of his grind, and he loops his arms around Dave’s neck to keep his balance. That puts Dave nose to nose with him, makes it easy, effortless to kiss him. To keep kissing him as he gets his bearings, starts working himself down again.

“That’s what I thought about,” Klaus tells him when they break apart, his brow set in concentration, arms locked tight around Dave’s shoulders. “I love you. I love living with you. That’s what it is.”

Klaus lays Dave out on his back again and stays down with him, cuddled up against his chest. Rides him like that, pressed as close as he can get without losing all his leverage, works his hips until his knees slide out from under him. And then Dave takes over and Klaus melts, exhausted, lets Dave wrap him up in his arms and fuck him at an angle that gets him moaning into his neck.

“C’mon,” Dave says, “show me,” which he'd normally blush out of saying, but it’s that kind of night.

He fits his hand between them, gets Klaus in his palm, gives him extra friction to push into. It doesn’t take much after that, not after all the buildup, and Klaus comes with an arch, a tremble. Kisses Dave, after, kisses him and bears down around him even though he must be so sensitive, edging on sore.

“Now you,” Klaus mumbles into Dave’s jaw.

So Dave gets one hand in Klaus’s hair, rests the other on the small of his back. Gives him quick, shallow thrusts, and Klaus kisses his neck, flutters through his own aftershocks. He pets at Dave’s cheek, smiles sleepy at him, and Dave is so weak for him, so  _ easy. _

They come down holding each other, Klaus draped over Dave like a sticky blanket that’s also a furnace. He stays so quiet Dave starts to think he’s sleeping. Wouldn’t be the first time he conked out on top of Dave. Or underneath him, or in his lap, or-

“Do you believe me?” Klaus asks him, and his voice is soft, muffled between Dave’s neck and the pillow. “Because I need you to, before we go do this thing.”

Dave turns his head as far as he can, ends up with his nose in Klaus’s curls. The familiar smell of their coconut shampoo, the salt of sweat underneath it. “Yeah,” he says. “I believe you.”

“Okay.” Klaus slides off Dave and to the side, ends up with his head on Dave’s shoulder, an arm thrown over his stomach. His stomach, which is messy. They should probably take a shower before they fall asleep. They’ve spent twenty years agreeing that’s a thing they should get better about doing.

“I love living with you, too,” Dave says.

Klaus snuggles closer. “Say you’re my husband.”

“I’m your husband.”

“I like that,” Klaus says. “That’s how I’m introducing you.”

“How’re you introducing yourself?”

“Sir Hargreeves’s adopted necromantic fuckup from the future.”

“Compelling,” Dave says. “Asks more questions than it answers.”

“Think it’ll go over?”

“I’d definitely let you into my house.”

Klaus kisses Dave's chest. "We'll workshop it tomorrow."

"We should shower," Dave says.

Klaus hums, settles his cheek down in the dip beneath Dave's collarbone.

"C'mon," Dave says, and he wraps his arms around Klaus and keeps them there until Klaus falls asleep.

Dave eases him down onto the pillow, gets up and grabs a washcloth for the worst of the mess. Klaus sleeps like a rock these days, and Dave gets the insides of his thighs, his belly. Cleans himself off on the walk back to the bathroom, leaves the cloth in the tub.

He stops on the way back, leans his shoulder on the bathroom doorframe. Klaus asleep, naked on top of the covers, sprawled out across the bed. The elegant arch of his neck, the curve from his ribs to his hips. The steady up and down as he breathes.

Dave's not going to pull the blankets out from under Klaus and risk waking him, but the quilt fell to the floor at some point, and he grabs it when he gets into bed, lays it out over both of them. Slots in beside Klaus, drapes an arm over his chest. He kisses Klaus's shoulder, because it's there.

℘

Dave tries and fails to sleep for an hour. Gets back out of bed, pulls his pants and a t-shirt on. Goes to fill up on ice.

There's an all-purpose room for all the amenities. Two washers and dryers, a vending machine, the ice. It’s been empty while they’ve been here, but someone's kid is hanging around tonight, perched over on one of the washers. The dryers are both rumbling, soothing repetition while Dave opens the ice tray, starts scooping.

"You’re not what I imagined," the kid says.

Dave turns, gets a better look at him. His shorts and blazer, argyle knee-high socks. Bright, clever green eyes.

"I hope that's a compliment," Dave says.

"Mostly."

Dave sets the ice bucket down on the table. "Nice to meet you, Five."

"Likewise." He's hunched forward, his gangly legs folded up on top of the machine, hands clasped above his ankles. "I know I'm not the family you were bracing yourself for. Call it a trial run."

"Twenty years," Dave says, "and you didn't come find him once."

"Maybe I did, and he didn't tell you."

"You didn't."

"He hadn't done anything stupid yet."

"He still hasn't."

"If by  _ something stupid, _ ” Five says, “you mean the same thing I mean, which is something that's impossible for those of us with a vested interest in the timeline to continue turning a polite blind eye to, then he's sure gearing up."

"What, him talking to his dad?"

Five looks at him.

"Something else?"

"I can't tell you the future," Five says. "That would be catastrophic."

"Klaus tells me the future all the time."

"Yeah, but I actually know what I'm talking about."

"Then what are you doing here?"

Five leans back on the washer like it's a wingback armchair. "Consider this a courtesy call," he says. "Your lives are probably going to get much more difficult. There's a nonzero chance that both of you will die unpleasantly."

"Probably? Shouldn't you know for sure?"

"That would be telling you the future."

"Okay," Dave says. "But I already knew all of that."

"You knew that in the abstract. I'm telling you that you might be about to put yourselves in specific, actual danger. Possibly."

"We've been in danger before."

"Not like this."

"All right," Dave says. "Good to know."

"And you're still gonna go along with him?"

"Sure am."

"Nobody's gonna change your mind?"

"Nope."

Five smiles at him. "Good," he says. "That's what he deserves."

Dave lets his breath out. "Agreed."

"Should I bother telling you to not mention this to him?"

"It's your breath to waste."

"Then tell him hello," Five says. "From all of us."

"Not gonna tell him yourself?"

"We may or may not get a chance to do that later," Five says. "Maybe. Not telling you the future."

"You're terrible at this."

"Normally, I'd shoot you and leave. I'm trying something new."

"Well, thanks for that."

"Thanks for taking care of our brother," Five says. "You've built up a lot of goodwill with a lot of very punch-happy people."

"I'll try not to burn through it all at once."

"See that you don't," Five says, and with a flash of blue, he's gone.

Dave picks up the half-full ice bucket. Stands there holding it. Waits to panic, or to cry, or to feel much of anything about the last two decades catching up in one evening like a snapped rubber band. Maybe it’ll hit him in the morning. Maybe he’ll walk out the door right now and find someone wearing an animal mask, and that’ll be all she wrote.

He walks out and doesn’t get shot on sight, so he goes back to their room. Lets the door close as softly as he can behind him. Puts the ice down, rubs his hands on his legs to warm them back up.

Klaus is still sleeping. Still breathing, which Dave never realizes he’s checking for until after he’s confirmed it. 

Tomorrow, Dave will tell him what happened. He’ll kiss him, sit with him while he’s angry or excited or scared. They’ll plan. They’ll book tickets. They’ll figure it out.

Tonight, Dave crawls under the quilt. Klaus has rolled onto his side, chasing the warm spot Dave left when he got up, and Dave tucks up behind him, his arm around his waist, hand on his belly. The way they slept when they first started sleeping together - not  _ sleeping, _ not with everyone else in camp milling around, just sleeping. Dave’s body cupped around Klaus’s like he could protect him that way. It made Dave feel useful, back then. Important. A lot has changed, but not that.

He buries his face in Klaus’s hair, shuts his eyes. Takes a moment while he can get it.


End file.
